You know I never even saw it coming. One moment I was this hip 30-something professional woman who knew all the latest fads and fashions and could sing the hook to the most fly tunes and now I couldn’t tell you one song on the top 10 list for today. I thought this would happen later in my life, you know once my son was a teenager, but it only took 10 months for me to become officially “uncool”. The sad part about it all is that I am not even upset about the transformation. I have totally assimilated to this lifestyle of listening to pots banging or the theme song of the “Wonder Pets”. I may not know Kanye West’s latest hit but I can sing all the words of the theme song for the “Backyardigans”. My only fear is if I am already at this stage now, where will I be in 5 years?
I continue to make half-hearted attempts to hold onto my youth by watching popular shows on television or programming specific stations on my radio. However, these attempts are always thwarted by bad language or inappropriate scenes. This inadvertently leads not only to the censorship of what my son is exposed to, but also censoring of my own experiences. You never realize that a certain show or movie is inappropriate until you are deep into the drama of the film, then bam, someone gets shot, stabbed or sexed. Once you are aware that something may be wrong, you look to your right and notice a small little toddler totally engrossed in the television and the show that is on. This is the point where your future flashes before your eyes and you see your little boy as a teenager using foul language with his pants hanging below his knees pushing down old ladies and hurting small children. So needless to say, you change the channel or stop the movie immediately.
The only station I can play on the radio without fear of exposing my son to violence, sex or bad language is the gospel station and Sunny 99.1 Love Songs. But don’t worry; I can’t even hear my music in the car anyway because whatever I play is always drowned out by my son’s music. My son has a musical mirror that we keep in our car. I thought this was a perfect gift when I received it but little did I know that I would want to break this contraption into a million pieces in less than three months. The mirror plays three different “classical” tunes that I know have been proven to drive a person crazy. And my son has figured out how to continuously play these songs over and over by using his foot to restart the songs (sometimes he is too smart for his own good). I swear if I hear one of those tunes one more time I will find the creator of this evil contraption and lock him in a closet with those three songs playing non-stop.
Recently, my son has discovered the pots and pans in our kitchen and he plays a different type of music. I am not sure how to categorize it but at least I know it’s appropriate, even though it is loud, and I don’t have to worry about fowl language. I guess as parents we just have to accept our fate. There is no such thing as a cool mom or dad, at least not in the child’s eyes because it takes time and money to be up on the latest fads and trends. And I can truthfully say that I don’t have an excess of either two things. So, I will just brush up on my skills so that I can at least sing my kiddie theme songs in harmony.
